


Of Scythe and Psyche

by hellsinki



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: Character Death, Crane-centeric, Dark, English not my native language, Experimental Style, Hallucinations, Insanity, M/M, Nolanverse, Sexual Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-04-05 03:31:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4164078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellsinki/pseuds/hellsinki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is only one way to kill the Batman and Crane knows what it is. It's all about monsters. </p><p>*Wayne/Crane but there is nothing beautiful about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Crane has a recurring nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not going to be a first person narrative. Only the prologue is. Just to set the mood.

The first time he looked at me, I looked away.

The second time, I looked away.

The third time was the last time I dared to look away.

He has a way of knowing what hurts me the most, and he is not reserved in the slightest to hurt me where it hurts the most.

  
And he hurt me the third time, and he will hurt me again if I look away, but sometimes I wonder if there is anything left in the world capable of hurting me, but I do not look away, because _It's not that I'm afraid of being hurt again: Nothing again can either hurt or heal_ ; It's his eyes; it's in the way he looks at me that renders me incapable of looking away. He meets my eyes across a field of boiling blood and frothing flesh, he grabs me by the hair and drags me facedown along a road littered with jarred pieces of misunderstood desire and half-choked insanity that rip my skin open and sink into my eyeballs. He takes me apart like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, day after day, night after night, and sometimes forgets to put me back, or just doesn’t care enough. He looks me in the eyes and I do not dare to look away, the way he looks at me renders me incapable of looking away; and he pushes his way into my head as if I am resisting him but I'm not, and he rips the memories off my mind in a way only he knows how, and for that I love him. And I love him because I do not look away because I love him and he loves me because I do not look away because I love him, he loves me.

Scarecrow would have called it cosmic irony if he were here. But he is not here; hasn't been here for such a long time sometimes I forget he has ever been here, but he must have been at some point in time because I am here, and I still carry the scars he had left on my mind, and I once told him that the scars would outlive us both, and he laughed as if I was but a mortal fool but I was not, because I am here and he is not.

He has not been here for such a long time sometimes I wonder if he has ever been here, but he must have been because...

  _"It only hurts the first time; it only hurts; the first time only hurts; it hurts, and it will never stop hurting."_

 ...the residue of memories at the back of your throat where you once shoved a finger and forced yourself to throw up (If you can't heal them, kill them.) But the aftertaste lingers still, and it makes you want to be sick all over again.

_How does it ever go away?_

 Scarecrow would have called it self-pity and despised me for it if he were here (a genius, a survivor, my lover, a curse); but he is not here and for that I love him; and I love him because he is not here, and he would have never loved me if he were here now, but he is not here and I refuse to miss, I refuse to love, I refuse to hate him. I refuse to waste any emotion on him, when he is not here to care; when he does not care to be here.

But does it ever go away?

The world whirls in sweet madness and comes undone beneath the delusional gentleness of the Batman’s touch as he grabs my throat every night and pushes me against the wall; his eyes like little circles of déjà vu expanding on the watery surface of my mind, as if I am halting the time when he tears into my skull for one last time just moments before I wake up and I press the rewind button to bring myself back to hear those cursed words from his cruel mouth time and time again...

  _Taste of your own medicine, Doctor?_

  _..._ so that I could remember why it hurt so much. So that I could remember those eyes, that jawline, and that voice rasping into my ears as the gloved hand tightened around my neck and squeezed hard, my breath caught and my precious sanity fleeting by...

 I would know who you are. I would know. The moment I see you, I would know. There is nothing greater than a crow's revenge; even if I am only the 'scare' for now, I will take back my other half and then I will come for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "It's not that I'm afraid of being hurt again: nothing again can either hurt or heal...and if that is all meaningless, I want to be cured of a craving for something I cannot find and of the shame of never finding it. Can you cure me?" - The Cocktail Party, T. S. Eliot


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Crane has an epiphany.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This AU assumes that Crane never broke out of Arkham during the Dark Knight and his last encounter with the Batman was at the end of Batman Begins.

Arkham wasn’t a kind place -- not by any stretch of the imagination; and especially not when you were at the receiving end of straitjackets, drug administration and shameless manhandling. Arguably, it was slightly less unforgiving now that the previous administrator had gone out of business. God, the awful things that man had done to those _poor_ , unsuspecting souls...but then it was even worse in a sense, seeing how that one and the same administrator was now the one standing, or rather, straitjacketed at the receiving end of the Asylum’s horrendous treatments.

Dr. Jonathan Crane was sick and tired of his current situation. He was tired of faking insanity - granted he _was_ insane, he had no illusions about that one - but he had to fake _looking_ insane so that they would keep him at Arkham. Not that he had any perverse sense of love and attachment to that one place that had witnessed him at his lowest, no. Arkham was one of the few places he knew how to escape from should the need arise. And the need would soon present itself, Crane was sure of that.

Today was another therapy session with Dr. Joan Leland. A professional, no-nonsense psychiatrist, almost too good for Arkham, definitely too good to a _supervillain_ such as Crane himself who once had no qualms about seeing to the complete destruction of Gotham, herself included; only that it wasn’t true and Leland knew it. Crane must have told her during one of his most severe psychosis breakdown episodes before he had adjusted to his new medications as he had no recollection of the things he had told her then. But somehow she had ended up knowing about his motives behind the experiments, his encounters with Ra’s al Ghul, and his childhood traumas. Though none of those revelations had been his conscious intentions at the time, he was almost satisfied with how things turned out between the two of them at the end. They now shared a sense of…camaraderie if he dared call it as such. And that kind of bond would definitely work in his favor, especially since he had no plan of remaining in Arkham for as long as they intended to keep him.

“You didn’t sleep well, last night.”

Her dark eyes bore into his feverish bright ones and Crane offered her a tired smile.

“When do I ever?”

He didn’t have his glasses. Of course, he didn’t. Inmates were forbidden to own anything made of glass or metal. He knew there were dark bags under his eyes he could almost feel their weight against his pale skin as they caved in and made his already large eyes appear more disproportionate to the other delicate features of his face. He knew the lanky dark hair plastered to his clammy forehead, the unguarded bright blue eyes and the slight trembles of his full lips made him look as unassuming and innocuous as a lost kitten. Though Dr. Leland knew that description was as far from the truth as it could get, she still fell victim to his charms every time he let her see him like this. You could just as well bring men down to their knees with those eyes of yours, she once told him with a slight humor to her voice that was a pleasing novelty all in its own right. Maybe next time, Doctor, he had said with a disarming mischievous glint in the said eyes and Leland had _smiled_ at him as if he wasn’t criminally insane; as if he wasn’t thousand levels deep in a hell of his own construct; as if she believed there was still some meager of hope left for his salvation. Oh yes, Crane, the genius psychiatrist that he was, knew all too well about the power of powerlessness, the strength in vulnerability, and he had no conflicting conscience to stop him from using it even on the people that _trusted_ him. Their own folly, really.

“Was it the same nightmare?”

Crane sunk a little into his chair, his handcuffed hands grabbing the armrests a little too painfully.

“Every single night, Joan. Every goddamn single night.”

He sighed her name in a way that he knew had affected her, even if slightly so. He could almost taste her compassion on the tip of his own tongue. Crane was the only person in the whole asylum that could get away with calling Leland by her first name. Even the Joker had to endure hours of torturous therapy every time he would feel bored enough to play mind games with the doctor. Crane, though, had _privileges_. Courtesy of his impressive degree and intellect, but mostly perhaps because of his eyes. Leland had a _perfectly_ -concealed weakness for them.

“How about…the Scarecrow?”

Oh the Scarecrow. Even hearing his name made his heart clench with a throbbing sense of homesickness.  

“Still subdued.”

“Glad to hear the medication is still working.”

The medication…was his own design. It was through sheer dumb luck that Leland was assigned to his case. She was probably the only therapist in this whole goddamn hellhole who knew enough of chemistry and psychopharmacology to realize what Crane, in his feverish delusional state was babbling about was not, in fact, mere delusional babblings but the ingredients to a drug that could possibly save him from any further descent into insanity. At the time he needed to keep his alter-ego in check in order to battle the severe effects of having been exposed to his fear toxin for too long. Although he really missed that part of him, he knew he was not ready for his return. His mind was still balancing precariously on the verge of total collapse and he needed to be as _sane_ as he could be to stop that from happening. He just hoped the Scarecrow would understand and forgive him for the prolonged exile the Batman had forced Crane into imposing on him. The Batman would pay. Crane had no doubt about that.

“Were you expecting anything less from a psychopharmacologist extraordinaire?”

He let the corners of his lips rise in a playful grin as Leland continued staring at him as if on the lookout for straws to suddenly fall from his ears and out of the sleeves of his too-large jumpsuit.

“Oh Jonathan, you could have been a brilliant doctor, saving lives with your inventions instead of ruining them. You don’t belong here, not that mind of yours.”

She was referring to the chair Crane was strapped to; the whitewash walls of the asylum, the handcuffs that dug mercilessly into the delicate flesh of his wrists. Her dark eyes looked upon his in regret, probably the only person in Gotham to know the circumstances that had led such a brilliant mind to take a plunge into criminality.

“Joan…we both know no one’s worth saving.”

“But you are.”

And she said that with such a conviction that Crane for just the briefest moment wanted to show her just how true that was. Only that it was not true, not in the sense that she was implying, and Crane did not feel generous enough to feed her sweet delusions.

It was then the door opened, without so much as a knock, and a voice that addressed Leland made Crane slightly turn around in his chair to look at the man that had just walked in.

Their eyes met; large electric blues and dark piercing browns. There was a moment of utter stillness, with the two men looking at one another in bewilderment. One certainly knew the other. The other was on the verge of a tremendous recognition. Those eyes, that jawline, the voice that had said ‘Dr. Leland can I have a little of your ti-’ before their owner had become aware of another presence in Leland’s office and stared wide-eyed at the strapped villain who was looking at him with the same kind of consternation, if only slightly more suppressed and controlled.

Crane almost choked out _Batman_ before stopping himself in time by sinking his teeth into his lower lip and drawing blood. His heart was beating like a wounded animal against his ribcage, he was at the verge of hyperventilating. God…it was him; the Bat Man. It was really him.

“Oh I’m sorry Dr. Leland I wasn’t aware you had a patient I’ll just come back…”

Leland stood from her chair and stopped him from making a hasty retreat out of the office.

“Please Mr. Wayne, it’s ok. My session with Jonathan here has nearly finished. If you give me ten minutes I’ll be seeing you next.”

Wayne…Bruce Wayne; Gotham billionaire playboy, the business magnate, the philanthropist. Bruce Wayne was the Batman.

Crane could hardly breathe.  

And Wayne…the Batman, was looking at him again. Looking at the mess he had made of that once brilliant doctor. Looking at the surprised blue eyes and the pale, pale complexion and the trembling lips. Crane had no doubt who _he_ was looking at.

“Jonathan…are you ok?”

Leland was standing before him, a hand placed gently on his shoulder. It was then he realized he was wheezing and forced his breathing back to normal.

“I…I want to go back to my cell.”

His mind was reeling. Leland nodded in approval and called up the security guards to take him back. When he walked past Wayne he did not look up, but the billionaire said his name and Crane stopped in his tracks.

“Dr. Crane?”

Crane looked up and regarded the conflicted face of Wayne under his drooping long eyelashes. He let a crazed smile appear on his lips and tilted his head to the side as he continued looking straight into those brown eyes that have never left his nightmares ever since that night.

“Dr. Crane is not here at the moment, but if you’d like to make an appointment…”

Wayne swallowed and averted his eyes but otherwise made no further comment. The guards then took Crane away. He felt those eyes burning holes into his back as he walked down the long corridor and into the elevator.

The Batman was Bruce Wayne.

Now the need to escape Arkham had finally arrived.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Crane makes a slight miscalculation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to work in a different recounting of the Joker/Scarecrow chair incident as occurred in Knightfall.

If you don't take care of yourself, no one else will. This idea had sustained him throughout his life, past his horrendous childhood trauma, the beatings, the bleeding, the shame. It was also what had given rise to the emergence of his alter ego, the Scarecrow. A coping mechanism in a sense, but Crane’s mind was sharper than that of an average person. And he was an expert at psychology. He knew exactly what was going to happen once he yielded control to the Scarecrow, and he let it happen, fully aware of the consequences. Because at that point, he was left with no other option. Either let his alter surface and take control, to protect his mind from total destruction, or let the effects of the fear toxin take away his ability to maintain coherent thought process. It was all he had, the Scarecrow was all he had and would ever need.

As he had laid slumped against the wall following the confrontation with the Batman, with his precious, brilliant mind boiling with nightmarish nonsense, it was the Scarecrow that took care of him until the police came and took him back to Arkham. It was the Scarecrow that comforted him, told him to let go, _come on Jonathan just go to sleep I’m here I’ll take care of everything for you, you don’t have to worry about anything, luv_ ; and Crane, scared and delusional and barely conscious, let himself go, submerged beneath a veil of sweet promises, and completely surrendered in a way he had never surrendered before, trusting his alter ego to protect him until help arrived.

And what did Crane do once help arrived? He told Leland to make him a drug he had created years ago when working on a university project on DID. A drug that could subdue his alter ego for as long as he was on it. To push him down under and take back complete control. To go back to how things were before the Batman, before being gassed with his own creation, before the breakdown and the end to all he had ever strived for.

Months came and went away, Crane in a straitjacket locked inside padded walls. His mind as silent as a graveyard in midnight. He missed him, but didn’t trust his fragile mind to handle the presence of another conscious. His beautiful, brilliant mind was in pieces. At times when he hit rock bottom and his mind became so uncomfortably numb from all the medication that he wished his arms were free so he could peel his skin away and draw blood, he began to wonder that maybe he was faking insanity so that he could bear the weight of living. That the very creation of the Scarecrow was, in its barest implication, a way to escape the reality. And for the last 6 months spent in Arkham as a patient, with drugs pumping through his veins and dulling the voices inside his head, oh yes he was san _er_ now than any other time before in his life, but he also felt chained and restricted in a sense that stretched far beyond the straitjacket, the handcuffs and locked up cells. And all he knew during this time, that one single thought that tormented him in his sleep and gave him a reason to believe his life still had purpose, was that the Batman was going to pay. Crane had nothing left and the only thing that stopped him from chewing through his wrists while in his lowest hour was the sweet promise of revenge. He would take the Batman down and then he would let go.

***

Crane was out of the straitjacket and solitary cell today, because he had been on his best behavior for a week; had cooperated with the orderlies, taken all his medication without any fuss, played nice with other patients during group therapy, and answered all the crappy psychological questions right. It was of course, the good old Dr. Leland who had granted him the little freedom because _obviously_ he deserved a little privilege once in a while. The same could not be said about the Joker, though. The Joker _never_ got any privileges (although, if the rumors were to be trusted, the mad clown was never on his good behavior). Crane almost felt bad for the guy. Almost.

And today he was going to pay him a visit. The Batman brought the Joker in just a month ago and he had been in solitary confinement ever since. Crane did not know the scope of the havoc the mad clown had wreaked on Gotham before getting caught by the Batman, but the stories going around Arkham all stressed that it was _bad_ ; Crane had been in Arkham the entire time and the patients were not allowed to know what was going on outside the asylum in case it interfered with their _recovery_ ; Crane had to smirk depreciatively at the thought. The day any Arkham patient got treated to perfect rehabilitation was the day Crane would declare himself the Batman’s lackey and fight _injustice_ alongside the caped freak.

But he digressed. The Joker was, as per usual, in solitary confinement. That would be the perfect setting for what Crane had in mind. Solitaries were guarded by electronic locks whereas ordinary cells opened with a cardkey that worked on all of them. Crane had already gotten the PIN code to Joker’s cell from the Riddler after solving a series of his rather mundane riddles. He did not know how the Riddler knew the code to the Joker’s cell and he did not ask. As for how he got out of his own cell? He had snatched Leland’s cardkey that day during one of their many therapy sessions (to be honest, they had ceased to be therapy sessions a while ago; now they were just some down time for Dr. Leland to spend it in Crane’s company, for whatever crazy reason the doctor had in mind.) And as an ex-administrator, he had a perfect knowledge of all the blind spots of the CCTV cameras installed in the corridors, so he could easily slip out of his cell without alarming any of the security guards about his late night adventures. Leland, though...that doctor was just too trusting of Crane’s baby blue eyes for her own good, leaving the cardkey so carelessly around with Crane not even handcuffed to his chair. What the hell had she been thinking? But Crane hadn’t played nicely to Leland’s obvious infatuation for nothing. He was a man who seized the opportunity as soon as it presented itself to him. He was not a man of many regrets.

But he did admit that he was a little _unhinged_. Maybe more than a little, considering his life choices and where those had landed him. But insanity for him was not about the loss of control or not knowing wrong from right. He could maintain a look of perfect mental health if he were so inclined and he did know right from wrong (unless he was going through one of those psychotic breakdowns, but he hadn’t experienced one ever since he was put on the right medication.) His insanity lied in the moment he chose wrong when he knew full well it was going to blow up in his face but not caring much. If he was sane, like any normal individual would be, he would have been concerned about his own safety and made decisions that would run the least amount of risk of ruining his overall well-being. But as it was, his incapability of feeling fear was the root cause of his insanity, and perhaps that was why his mind was so clear now ever since that day Bruce Wayne - the Batman - had walked into Leland’s office and thrown Crane for a loop. Seeing the Batman after all those six months, after that night that ruined it all, after the nightmares like worms eating away at his brain and the screams in his head over the erratic wheezing of his breaths and the crows digging their vicious claws into his face and shoulders, had scared him in a way that he knew was real, and Crane had finally felt alive. 

He was now ready to take on anything. Fear was a fascinating emotion; too much of it and you’d be paralyzed. None of it and you’d lose focus and the motivation to strive for anything. But if it came in the right dose from the proper source - there, you could thrive.

And with that thought Crane finally arrived at the Joker’s cell. Ordinary cells had iron bars; solitary confinements had padded walls and as such provided a sense of... _privacy_ , so to speak. It was a good thing Arkham did not bother with CCTV cameras for solitary cells. Apparently, the straitjacket and the 6-by-8-foot space were enough deterrence to guarantee the patient had barely enough space to breathe let alone move and cause chaos. Crane had been planning this for a whole damn week. One could even say he couldn’t wait to finally meet the Joker.

And meet him he finally did. The patient that went by the name of the Joker was awake, even though it was some time around two in the morning, staring at Crane in a way only someone nine circles deep into insanity hell could manage. Crane had often thought about the Joker, trying to psychoanalyze him even without having seen him, and more often than not had ended up comparing himself to him, believing they somehow operated on the same plane of thought. But seeing him like this, with that dirty, tangled green hair and a smiling mouth with terrible jagged cuts around its corners, and those unnerving brown eyes that looked at Crane as if they knew something he did not...well, Crane was not so sure anymore. He thought he should probably take a little solace in the knowledge that there was another person in Gotham more insane than he was.

“We’re gonna play a little game, Joker.” 

He cut to the chase. He was not sure how much time he had before the orderlies came to give the Joker his medication or when Leland would realize he was not in his cell. He also knew, from the hypothetical profile he had drawn on the Joker, that the mad clown was probably not someone with a lot of time and patience on his hands.

“Oh a game you said?” His voice was light-hearted and terribly mismatched with his unnerving scarred grin. He sounded drugged but his eyes were shining with perfect awareness. “I love playing games.” a lick of his upper lip. “especially with _pretty_ little things like you.”

Again, if Crane was sane, he would have taken that crazed enthusiastic look in the Joker's eyes as a warning and beat the hell out of there. But he was not, he had never been truly sane enough, and as such he just returned the Joker's hideous smile and walked toward the man in the straitjacket.

"That's good then, we'll be probably getting along rather well."

"What game now is it? Does it involve your infamous fear toxin? I always wanted to try that on myself!"

Crane was less taken aback by the Joker's eagerness for being gassed than the fact that the clown, although at the moment sans the makeup they said was his trademark, actually knew who he was.

Crane of course didn't let that realization show on his face. He was always good at concealing his true emotions.

"Well maybe some other time. As you can see I'm still a patient here and don’t have access to my toxins. But we're gonna have some fun all the same."

By now Crane was standing behind the psychopathic terrorist, untying the straps on his straitjacket as they spoke. 

"What the fuck, doc? You’re actually removing my straitjacket?! Haha, you must be as crazy as it gets." 

The absolute glee in that voice would have unnerved anyone, even the Batman. But not Crane. If there was anything in that situation capable of unnerving him was his total lack of common sense to be unnerved.

"Maybe so, but I'm afraid you'll need your hands if we're going to have some fun."

He pulled off the last strap and came around to stand before the grinning clown. He put his hands behind his back and stared at the scarred mouth that fascinated him so much. What was his story? Crane had absolutely nothing solid on the guy, and not for a lack of trying. All his files in Leland’s office came out with more questions than answers. Crane just had to improvise.

“You’re an eccedentesiast.”

The Joker had yet to make a move. His arms lay limply against his body. Crane had a feeling he was just biding his time, trying to build suspense to strike when Crane was least expecting. Too bad Crane was the one orchestrating this whole damn charade. 

“I’m a what now?”

He sounded amused; perfect. He was listening. Crane had all his attention. 

“An eccedentesiast; you see, with this permanent smile cut into your face and all the makeup and the bad jokes and the spontaneous bursting into laughter when you should be howling in pain...but deep inside you’re just a scarred little boy. You're hiding that vulnerability behind a fake smile and it’s pathetic how you think you have everyone fooled.”

Crane looked down at the fingers that gripped the armrests a little tighter, the body leaning a little forward as if about to bounce, and smiled inwardly at his rather quick progress. Good. it was a good start.

“Oh doc I suggest you stop doing your little psychoanalysis shit on me if you know what is good for you.”

So he guessed right. The Joker hated it when people poked around his damaged psyche and dragged out the dirty truths to the surface. Crane had to keep going even if what he was selling as truth was only some educated guess.

“Do you know who I am?”

He moved away. The change in topic made the Joker pause in whatever spontaneous evil plan he was thinking of doing. That was alright. Crane was on the right track and everything was under control.

Why was he here? He certainly had no death wish. He needed to get out of Arkham, but the door to the outside world was protected by a security system that changed the code every day, so even the Riddler had no way of knowing it. Crane’s best chance was to get his hands on an orderly and threaten them into giving him the code. But the only place in this whole goddamn hellhole which could contain anything resembling a weapon was the infirmary. So to put it simply, Crane needed to land himself in the infirmary and the Joker was quite famous for his violent outbursts.

He had of course thought of a direct approach to get the Joker beat the crap out of him but there was always the possibility of the Joker refusing just to be difficult even if Crane was actually appealing to his governing principle of violence and destruction. So a mind game. Crane was an expert at that, too.

“Heh doc, what is it? 20 bloody questions? Is that your idea of a game?”

Crane ignored him.

“Do you know what I have done? I brought Gotham to its knees. I was the reason the Batman was created.”

For some reason, the Joker was still biding his time. Crane though did not have enough time for this bullshit. He had to get to the point fast.

“Heh, doc, don’t go flattering yourself so much now, it’s...um...unflattering.”

He brushed his tongue over his upper lip and gave Crane a lewd grin. Crane was not amused.

“I created the Batman. The Batman created you.”

He leaned close into the Joker’s face and got a waft of unwashed hair and body odor. Apparently, hygiene did not rank very high on mad clowns’ lists.

“That’s _utter_ nonsense, doc.”

“Oh is it? It was me who necessitated the existence of the Batman. And the Batman needed more evil to keep himself in the game so he created you. He's the product of villainy and you’re the product of _justice_.”

“You wanna know what I think, doc?”

This was it. Crane could almost smell it in the air. He let the Joker’s hand wrap around the collar of his jumpsuit and pull him close to snarl into his face. It was nothing like his encounter with the Batman six months ago. He still had nightmares about that gloved hand around his face. This though...this was nothing in comparison. A need to feel fear itched under his skin like parasites feeding on his blood.

“I think you’re off your meds, doc and need a _little_ help with that.”

What happened next was something Crane, with all his planning and perfect reasoning, had not anticipated. He expected the Joker to rough him up, to throw him around and beat the crap out of him using his fists and feet but not the fucking _chair_. The Joker let go of his collar and pushed him a little away, and while Crane was trying to keep his balance, the Joker hauled the heavy chair off the floor and swang it toward his head with such a vicious force that Crane felt lucky he didn’t break his neck. The world swam before his eyes and the next second he was staring at Joker’s feet instead of his face. The chair came hard on his back as he lied bonelessly on the padded floor and he couldn’t stop the groan that escaped through his lips. Blood was dripping into his eyes and he already felt nauseated.

“You know what else I think? That you’re a loser. A fucking charlatan. I bet your fancy fear toxins don’t work either.”

The third strike knocked the breath out of him and he was barely aware of his surroundings when the Joker hauled his battered body off the ground and smashed his back against the wall. He was sure he had a nasty concussion and his back felt on fire. He could barely keep his eyes open. Damn. Why didn’t he think of the chair? He wasn’t planning to get killed by a fucking chair. Just some bruised ribs to land him in the infirmary. Crane hated to admit that his perfect plan had gotten out of control because he had forgotten to consider the fucking chair. If he died here, it would be the most humiliating death that could have happened to him. Death by a chair? What would the Batman think?

“Don’t kill me.”

He choked the words even though he did not mean to say them. He was panicking now in a way he hadn’t for months, panicking over something that he did not need to keep telling himself was not _real_ , and the itch under his skin felt like being scratched away, and despite the pain and humiliation, the obvious threat to his life, Crane felt _contented_. The Joker looked at him in surprise, apparently not expecting the pathetic plea after the bravado Crane had put on display just to get under the madman's skin, or maybe by the sudden appearance of a loopy grin on his bleeding face.

The Joker let go of his neck and Crane slid down the wall and crumpled on the floor like a broken doll. The blood was pooling beneath his head staining the padded floor in bright red and every spot on his body was screaming in agony. He needed to get up, to get the hell out of the Joker's cell before getting hit by the chair again, but losing consciousness was like the Siren's call and Crane was already drowning in a pool of his own blood. The last thing he heard before losing the battle to the dark was the Joker shouting for the security guards to come for help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I could just write 'Arkham's security is crap and villains get out of there on a daily basis'; but nooo, I had to get Crane landed in infirmary hence all the crappy explanation on how the security in Arkham works. Sorry about that XD


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dr. Leland makes a grave mistake.

It took him three full days to come around. The operation had gone pretty well considering the severity of his injuries and he had been lucky to have escaped the incident with his spinal cord intact, as Dr. Jensen told him with a grim look on his face. Crane, justifiably so, felt like death warmed over. It wasn’t every day (although not as infrequent as he liked) that he was beaten within an inch of his life and survived the whole episode to feel the aftermath in every iota of his being. He was pumped full of drugs but the pain behind his eyes and around his temples throbbed like a ticking bomb about to explode. But all was not lost; he could still get his bearings and carry out with his escape plan as he had intended. Plus, his body was quite acquainted with physical abuse of varying degrees and he had learned a long time ago how to pick up his broken pieces and move on on rattling bones. The only setback in his plans was that he was still far too incapacitated to move a muscle. But nothing one or two weeks of bed rest with morphine injected into his vein and good company couldn’t fix. Leland had stayed by his bedside the whole time, making sure he was as comfortable as one could get with a dislocated shoulder in a sling, a bandaged head, two fractured ribs and a severely bruised back that was now numb only thanks to the pain medications and muscle relaxants.  

“Why Jonathan?” She finally asked on the fifth day after the incident. Crane only agreed to give her an _honest_ answer after she ordered one of the nurses to give him another dose of morphine once doctor Jensen was out of sight.

“You know all these shots are gonna make you addicted,” she chastised as the nurse injected a syringe full of amazing morphine into his vein.

Crane sighed happily, the annoying pain behind his eyes already taking a vacation to the opioid-induced Utopia, “look at me Joan; I have worse things to worry about than an addiction to painkillers.”

Leland brushed her finger gently over the spot the nurse had injected him, wiping away the tiny drop of blood that had collected there. The gesture would have greatly disturbed Crane had he not sunk so deep into the sea of blissful numbness.

“Well?”

The well-practiced lie came easily to him even under the influence of drugs.   

“Simple curiosity; Wanted to meet him...in person; to see what made him tick; to learn about the mechanism that drove him; to solve him.”

Leland rose one disbelieving eyebrow but it was obvious that she couldn’t really put it past a deranged, self-obsessed ex-psychiatrist to actually put his life in danger so that he could get a glimpse into the mind of a psychopath. It was what drove _him_ after all.

“You went to all that trouble, nearly got yourself killed, just to psychoanalyze him? You stole my cardkey, Jonathan!”

She wasn’t exactly angry, but deeply upset and worried that Crane could have so easily stolen things from her office without her even noticing.  

“Well what can I say? I can be one-track minded to a fault.”

“You could have just asked.”

Crane snorted. It was a good thing he was so nicely medicated, otherwise he wouldn’t have let Leland drag out this conversion for so long.

“I looked through your files on him, Joan. You know nothing of his past, his motives, his behavioral pattern. What could you have told me if I asked?”

That earned him a scowl. She was most probably thinking ‘when the hell did he go through my files?'. Crane just gave her one of his lazy, infuriating smirks, as if saying 'deal with it.'

“You know this is a breach of security, Jonathan. I should report you.”

“But you won’t.”

Crane looked at her through hooded lids. Leland held his gaze in defiance but didn’t contradict him.  

“So was it worth it? Was learning about the Joker’s psychosis worth getting bruised ribs and a concussion that could have very well put you in a coma?”

“No pain, no gain.” he said simply, brushing off her question. Leland pursed her lips and sensing Crane's impatience, abruptly changed the subject.

“It wasn’t a coincidence.”

“What wasn’t?” Crane asked absentmindedly, the freshly-injected morphine into his vein doing wonders for his pain-addled brain, despite Dr. Jensen’s objection that it might cause complications with the various antidepressants he was on.

“That I was assigned to your case.”

That grabbed his attention, although it was still a little difficult for him to focus through the haze and drug-induced confusion that was now settling nicely on his nerve ends.

“Oh?”

Leland was looking at him strangely, but Crane really just wanted to close his eyes and enjoy his pain-free state as long as it was going to last.

“I volunteered; in fact I convinced Bolton to let me have you.”

Bolton...that despicable, uncouth, loathsome son of a bitch that Bruce Wayne (heh, the Batman) had appointed as the new head of security for Arkham to replace him. Crane felt his blood pressure rise just by thinking of that ugly face of the man, despite the fact that he really shouldn’t have been feeling anything what with all the analgesic drugs in his body.  

“I assume he took _a lot_ of convincing to let you take me away from his greedy, sadistic clutches. Why would you do that?”

Leland turned her head away for a moment and her silence confirmed Crane’s suspicions about the length the good doctor had gone through to make sure Bolton would not get his sadistic hands on him.

“You...fascinate me,” she turned to look at him, with something in her dark eyes Crane was surprised to find; _Longing_. For him? Preposterous.

“Have been doing that for years, now;” and the words came out of her mouth in a continuous flow as if she had been holding up the greatest secret of her life for decades and was now allowing herself to finally let go.  “I came upon your articles when I was still at college studying neuropsychology, but your articles, your findings, made me take a shot at psychopharmacology; you literally changed my life, Jonathan. It fascinated me to realize there was someone as young as you already so advanced in a field I was still struggling to grasp. I always wanted to meet the person behind those brilliant discoveries. Then I heard you’d become the administrator of Arkham Asylum. so I decides to finish my studies and come here as soon as I could. To finally meet you.”

Crane was taken aback to find out Leland’s infatuation with him was not a result of his current pitiful state coupled with the disarming blue of his eyes but rather it went a long way back; back when he was still a respectable citizen, praised by Gotham elites for his remarkable contributions to the society, before they realized Crane was just too much for them and decided to fire him from his position as a professor in Gotham University. 

“But then you found yourself caught in the middle of my fear toxin project,” he mused, unwilling to confront Leland’s confession dead on.  

Leland smiled sadly at him and nodded her head.

“Joan, do you think I’m crazy?”

The question came to him suddenly and left his mouth without much consideration. He had no idea why he had asked that and what he expected to hear. Of course she thought he was crazy, why would she be his psychotherapist otherwise?

“I think you're a genius but disillusioned and wronged so you seek your revenge on the city that has betrayed you.”

She was avoiding the question in style. Crane had to hand it to her.

“But do you approve of my choices?”

“No I’m not saying that. I’m just saying I understand.”

“Do you really?”

“Isn’t that how it is though.” It wasn’t a question.

By now, Crane was in a mood that was both lethargic and alert and if his brain wasn’t already swimming in morphine he knew he would be having a headache.

“Joan, you may have been made privy to some of my darkest memories but I'm not only those. I am so much more. So much more.”

His tone was dark as he held the unwavering gaze of Dr. Leland, forcing her to admit he wasn’t that kind of person to have an obsession with; far from it; the wisest thing to do when coming face-to-face with a genius sociopath such as himself was to run in the opposite direction as fast as humanly possible.  

“I know, Jonathan; I know. Underestimating you would be that one error in judgment that I would never allow myself to make.”

“Then why are you doing this?” Frustration was building up in his chest, a need to throw things and _hurt_ someone to appease his confusion bubbling softly under his skin.

Leland had no idea what she was getting herself into, did she?

“Doing what?”

No she did not.

“Helping me.”

The soft hand that suddenly touched his set off deafening alarm bells inside his head. The touch felt like a chokehold restricting his airways, about to send him into panic.

“Jonathan I…,” and as if finally realizing Crane’s discomfort, she removed her hand. “There's something you should know. Although I’m not asking you to do anything about it. It’s just something I promised myself to tell you once you asked about it.”

“What is it, Joan?” He asked tiredly, but only because he was still trying to force his breathing back to normal. He had a _very_ bad feeling about all this.

“I'm in love with you.”

The breath was knocked out of his lungs in a way that he was almost sure he had been hit with a chair again. He thought he should be laughing but he wasn’t. There was something very serious in Leland’s eyes, determination -- no resignation, some kind of well-worn understanding she had long come to terms with, like she knew she had drove herself into a dead-end and was no longer trying to crawl over the wall or make a hole through it with the sheer power of denial.

There was no denial. Not for a very long time, it seemed.  

“In love with me?,” he finally asked because someone had to make a sound over the deafening silence. “Joan what are you saying is that a joke.” and it was hardly a question.

“No, no! I told you I’m not asking you to do anything about it. Just take it as a confession and move on.”

“Why are you telling me this? Oh god woman, are you crazy?” and this one was a question because Crane was dumbfounded and beginning to question the stability of her sanity. It was one thing to fall in love with an insane criminal (for whatever emotional, inane reason), but it was a whole level of total absurdity to actually let the insane criminal know about it.

“Just forget I said anything.”

“You’re a goddamn psychologist Joan Leland, you should know better than telling people to forget knowing things that would have such grave consequences on their lives. Of course I’m not going to forget about it.”

“Well what are you gonna do?” If she sounded a little bit afraid, Crane was in no state of mind to notice.

But what was he going to do? There was a reason Crane had never been fond of emotional attachments. For the psychologist that he was, any kind of obsession with another person, be it romantic or perverted or both, was a type of mental disorder which could cause severe consequences if went unchecked.

And at this moment in his life, when he had finally found a purpose to put Arkham Asylum behind him, when he was ready to let go of everything that once defined the person he was, his profession, his genius, all his connections and unfinished business, now that everything had come to this point in time when he was about to throw himself off the edge, having someone there to grab his hand and prevent the fall simply would not do.

Oh no Leland had no business to save him now that he was completely done with hoping to be saved.

“I’m gonna take a rest,” he finally said.

Leland stood up from the chair she had been occupying for the best part of the five days Crane had spent in the infirmary, her hand hovering dangerously over Crane’s for the briefest moment but then deciding against touching him. Crane released the breath he did not realize he had been holding.

“Ok I leave you to it, then.”

He closed his eyes once Leland left. He needed to go through everything all over again. He was going to leave Arkham and destroy everything that had the slightest connection to him. He was not going to leave any part of himself behind for any curious mind to find; nothing to track him down, to remind them of his existence.

Leland, through her emotional attachment to him, was now a part of him, and Crane had to get rid of that part as well. Even if the thought slightly pained him, even if he wished things did not have to end this way.

He reached with his good left hand under his pillow and felt the reassuring warmth of the scalpel's steel surface.

He was going to leave Arkham, and the only thing he would be taking with him from the asylum was his insanity.

 

Everything else, he would destroy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to let Crane leave Arkham in this chapter but then Leland happened and wouldn't just budge so...This is not going to be Crane/Leland obviously. It's still all about the Batman and...the monsters.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Crane has to make a difficult decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for disturbing content.

The gravity felt heavy under his dangling legs, pooling like molten lava licking at the heels of his shoes, trying to drag him down into the inferno beneath but the large gloved hand around his jaw kept him hanging in limbo, the sirens calling to him to just fall over into the river, ‘it’s alright, Jonathan, you won’t remember a thing’, the winged demon calling his name impatiently, ‘don’t delay boy, the boat is leaving’, but the hand kept pressing hard bruising his jaw, the voice growling ‘no, not yet, you don’t have the coin.’ Crane wanted to scream for the black monster to let go of him, but the pressure was keeping his mouth shut, the terror was paralyzing, ‘wait, no, no, no don’t go, take me with you, let me forget, let me FORGET...’

He always woke up with a half-choked scream.

It was dark and hot in the infirmary; humid. His hospital gown was sticking to his sweaty body, his heart pounding madly against his still-bruised ribcage and his mouth felt dry. But the room was silent like the aftermath of a natural disaster, except for the beeping of the heart monitor and the whispers in his head, the leftovers of his recurring nightmare.

There was no clock in the infirmary but he did not need one. He knew it was 4:30. Every single night he was startled out of his dream at exactly the same time, just as the Batman leaned in close to whisper seductively into his ear ‘taste of your own medicine, doctor?’ and the press of a finger on the mechanism of his fear toxin and the moment that his whole life was ruined before his watering eyes. And Crane would only take five seconds to reorient himself after the dream, to remember where he was, who he no longer was, and then he would press the little red button next to his bed, calling for a nurse to tend to his needs. Only this time, he didn’t ask for a glass of water or some medication to relieve the insisting pain in his head. He asked for Dr. Leland. He had stayed in the infirmary long enough to be able to support his weight on his feet and today he was leaving Arkham behind.

It was a sobering thought that sat heavily behind his eyelids, causing him to rub his eyes with the back of his good hand and let out a long, shuddering breath. His escape from the asylum would change everything. It was the beginning of the end, and Crane could not help feeling a little on edge. He had once let the Batman tear his life into pieces; now he was going to throw the pieces away.

Just as he had predicted, overpowering Leland was not very difficult. She was shorter, thinner, and completely unguarded as she stepped inside the infirmary, expecting to find Crane lying in bed as always and not standing to the left side of the door with a stolen scalpel in his hand, waiting for her to arrive.  Crane was in absolute control here, leaning intimately into the curve of her back, pressing the scalpel harshly against her throat and leading her away from the door. Leland was breathing noisily into the deadness of the early morning, the taste of her fear sweet and intoxicating on Crane’s tongue. God, he had forgotten how good it felt to be back in control.

“Don’t make a sound, Joan. You don’t want to make this any more complicated now do you?” he whispered wetly into her ear, noticing amusedly how her body quivered and reacted to the sexual undertone of their positions.

Leland shook her head slightly, mindful of the brush of the steely tip of the scalpel against the soft skin of her throat. From the little moonlight that managed to creep its way into the infirmary Crane could see Leland’s dilated pupils and trembling lips. When was the last time he had made someone so scared? For a moment he was tempted to stay in this position and drink up the power of instilling fear into others, knowing full well that once he left these walls, he would have to subject himself to a state of complete submission. But he didn’t have much time to enjoy this one last chance of being in control. He had to let go before he got sidetracked and forgot why he was doing all this in the first place.

“Good girl, now do you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to talk.”

Crane shifted their positions, pressing Leland’s back against the wall and trapping her body with his own, all the while holding the scalpel in his left hand pressed threateningly to her throat, his other hand still numb and useless in a sling.

“Jonathan…”

“Not Jonathan.”

He knew what she was thinking. That the Scarecrow was back, taking charge of the situation. He thought he could spare her a total heartbreak if he let her think he was not her sweet, docile Jonathan but a deranged alter ego that would do anything to get his way. Crane was never a considerate man, mindful of others’ feelings. But he thought Leland deserved a little peace of mind for all the things she had done for him during his long stay in Arkham and for what he was soon going to do to her.

“You...you stopped taking your medication,” she drew the right conclusion from wrong premises; Crane let her; “why?”

Crane tilted his head, letting the soft silvery moonlight light up the right side of his face, knowing that the little glint of evil in his bright eye would be enough proof for her to believe the Scarecrow was back.

“Joan, I’m leaving,” he said simply, in a tone that suggested Leland should have figured this out on her own.

“And you need me for that.” The realization finally hit her like a ton of bricks.

“Yes; I need the code to the exit; also the combo to your safe.”

She let out a shallow breath, eyes fully focused on his face. “I see; and if I don’t cooperate?”

“I’ll kill you,” he said without missing a beat.

“You’d really do that, wouldn't you?”

Crane pressed the scalpel a little harder against her skin, watching carefully as she shut her eyes and held her breath; she was truly scared now. It was an intoxicating scene.“Yes, I’m leaving and there’s nothing that can stop me now.”

She opened her eyes then, still afraid for her life but a little more composed. As if she was trying to distract herself from the thought of her impending doom so that she would not get into a full blown panic attack.

"I talked with the Joker while you were under operation. He said you had played a mindgame with him to get him beat you up. He wanted me to tell you that you had balls. Now it all makes sense."

Crane thought he should probably send the Joker a note of appreciation for unwittingly facilitating his escape from the asylum; maybe he would once he had finished his business with the Batman.

“Man’s greatest weakness is his greatest fear,” he had once told Leland the same words during one of their sessions when she had asked why he was so fascinated with fear. She had then asked what her greatest weakness was which Crane had dismissed with a playful comment, “my eyes, of course.” It was meant as a joke back then. It was a bleak, sobering reality now.

And Leland recognized it as such if the grim look on her face was anything to go by.

“Did Bolton ever come visit Jonathan?”

Her question threw him for a moment. Both for the mention of that despicable name and also for the fact that she was treating his alter ego as a separate personality. Crane had no recollection of those days when the Scarecrow was in full control; did his alter ego differ so much from him that Leland had come to perceive him as another personality altogether?

But he did not let Leland see his emotional response to her question; “Yes, two weeks ago, when you were called away to sort out the ruckus Zsasz had caused in one of the sections. Why?"

“Did he tell Jonathan...what I did to keep him away?”

“No, he had _other_ interesting things to tell him apparently,” he tried so hard not to remember the things he’d said; the filthy glint of pure sadism in those beady eyes, the revolting touch of his hands around his neck; the foul smell on his skin that filled up his sensitive nostrils as the man leaned in close and tightened his grip around his neck. Crane would have stopped by Bolton’s office to remind him who really was the more real threat if he didn’t need to get out of Arkham as fast as possible.

“It was the Joker,” her voice startled him out of his reverie, “I gave him the Joker.”

“What?,” he asked incredulously, not fully comprehending at first what she was implying.  

“I gave him full access to his solitary cell. In fact, I kept the Joker in the solitary for him...to do as he pleased.”

Jonathan was mildly impressed. Here he was, thinking Leland went so much by the book that she was practically incapable of going out of line if the need ever arose. Apparently he had been wrong about her and Crane was rarely wrong about people.

"Joan, that wasn't a very nice thing to do," he said with a touch of sarcasm.

"It was the only deal he would agree to. It was either Jonathan or the Joker. I had nothing against the Joker personally, but Jonathan...I couldn't let Bolton hurt him."

Crane thought he would have been touched by all the things Leland had done to make sure he was safe if he hadn't been too focused on getting out of Arkham and to the Batman. And for what he knew was going to happen to him once he did get to the Batman, whatever length Leland had gone to to save him would all become pointless anyway.

"This is all so nice and sweet but I still need those codes, Joan."

Leland smiled bitterly at him, "nothing will ever make you consider a chance with me, ha?"

"Joan, I’m a hardened criminal. You really don't want to have a chance with me," he said smoothly with a raised brow. He was still holding the scalpel against her throat, still in his ridiculous hospital gown, still locked-up inside Arkham and hundreds of miles away from his last destination. Was he having cold feet or was he giving Leland a moment of reprieve out of some well-practiced decency he had to take up in his earlier days as a respectful citizen of Gotham? He couldn’t really tell. He knew he didn’t like Leland, but there were at least a handful of other names on top of his killing list, starting with Bolton and ending...well, with the Batman. Leland just happened to be an unfortunate hindrance to his grand scheme.

"And I'm no better than you; not for what I did to the Joker," unfortunate or not, she was still one stubborn woman and quite delusional if all she could think about while her precious life was being threatened was to persuade her would-be killer into having an affair with her. How did Crane never see this coming?

He decided he really didn’t feel like playing along Leland’s game any longer. “What are the codes Joan?,” he said in a patient yet decisive tone.

Leland held her ground, “what are you going to do outside?”

“That’s for me to know. Now tell me what they are,” a little restlessness crept into his voice. Leland’s defiant stare softened.

“Jona- Scarecrow, are you going to cause trouble again?”

Crane sighed. This conversation was taking longer than he had expected. Too bad he really needed Leland to cooperate and tell him the codes without causing alarm or else he would have snapped a long while ago.

“I tell you this much; you don't have to worry about me causing any trouble. I’m not going to. I’m just going away. far far away. No one will ever hear of me again.”

Leland’s eyes softened even more, with some kind of emotion that said she had believed him. She put too much trust in the seeming sincerity of his eyes. She once said his eyes hid nothing, that they were the only part of him that never lied. And she was right in a sense. That was why Crane had opted to wear glasses even though his eyesight was perfectly fine.

“I'll give you the codes but please tell me this much. You're Jonathan, aren't you?”

Perhaps it was the eyes again, giving him away. Perhaps Crane had forgotten how to sound like the Scarecrow or maybe it was just what Leland needed him to tell her. At this point, nothing mattered much. He wondered if anything ever would.

He nodded his head and Leland released a sigh of relief.

“Thank god. Jonathan listen to me; please don't go after the Batman.”

Her words caught him off-guard but he didn’t show it; “whoever said I was going to.”

“I know you. The nightmares you had, you are completely fixated on taking your revenge but please don’t do it. He'll destroy you.” She sounded breathless, hurried, as if his well-being really mattered to her, as if it mattered to _him_.

Why would she be worried about his safety when he was about to kill her? Was that what love would do to someone’s common sense? Even to a person with a doctorate in psychology?

“Joan, I don’t know what you’ve been telling yourself during these past few months to make yourself believe there was any part of me still left to be saved but the ugly truth is that he already did. He's destroyed _every_ little part of me and there’s nothing more he can do to hurt me now.”

“I thought...I thought we were making progress.” Her resolve broke with self-disappointment, the sudden feeling of defeat distorting her handsome features into something akin to mourning.

Crane thought that called for some highly overdue confessions; “I’m sorry I led you on, doctor; I was never your pet project.”

Leland closed her eyes, looking as if all fight had finally seeped out of her. “Of course not. How come I was ever so foolish to think...to think that I almost had you.”

It was a disturbing sight, looking down at Leland, finding her so utterly broken and lost, after everything that had happened between them, after what Crane had come to perceive her as, strong-willed, level-headed, hard if not impossible to break. Crane thought he had had enough. “Joan, the codes,” he said instead of _I’m sorry I broke you_.

“528421 to the safe. 9171973 to the exit,” she almost sounded dead. Crane did not feel any sense of accomplishment. Here was where everything came to an end; a parody of an apocalypse to everything he had come to care about. If he hadn’t been waiting for this moment for what seemed to him like an eternity he would have been unable to see it through past this point where Leland had no more self-delusion about his recovery and Crane was reminded once again of how far gone he had sunk into the madness pit.

“Thanks. I’m going to kill you now,” he always was blunt when the situation least demanded it. He figured it was some kind of motivational mechanism to prompt him to do what his subconscious had still some reserves about it.

“I figured as much although I don't quite understand why,” for some reason, her defeated expression unnerved him. He much preferred her fear as a result of her survival instinct to her quiet submission to her tragic fate.

He couldn’t tell her why. He had already told her enough to make the decision to kill her slightly more difficult than he was comfortable with. What was it Holden said? _Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody_. Well, that must have been it. There was a reason why Crane hated emotional attachments so much. They made making important decisions unnecessarily difficult.

“If it’s any consolation, you're the only one I’d ever regret hurting,” he offered offhandedly, although he really meant it. Leland’s mouth curved into a sardonic smirk.  

“My, is that Dr. Crane's twisted way of saying 'I love you, too'?”

“If you like to take it as such.”

He leaned his body closer, her heart beating maddeningly against the point where their chests met so intimately, the ghost of her warm breath on his cheek as if stressing how alive she was in that moment before she no longer was. This wasn’t his first kill although he wasn’t much of a fan of killing. There were other more interesting ways to make people pay. But this wasn’t about revenge. Just a necessary evil. Crane, while hating to be forced into making necessary decisions, was not too idealistic to think life would be kind enough to allow him to possess as much free will as he pleased.  

“Jonathan...tell me, tell me I didn't make a mistake,” she whispered into his ear as Crane put more pressure on the scalpel against the delicate line of her throat.  

It only took him a fraction of a second to decide to tell her, “you didn’t” before the pressure became too much and the delicate flesh gave way under the sharp edge of the steel and the warm blood that oozed out and stained his hand and the long sleeve of his hospital gown and the life that quickly faded away from those dark eyes told him of a brilliant potential ruined once again at the hands of convenience.

He gently lowered Leland’s lifeless body to the ground and searched inside her pockets for her cardkey, leaving big smudges of blood on her otherwise white coat.

“You didn’t,” he whispered again, this time more as a confirmation to himself than her who was now too dead to hear him anyway.

The infirmary was now bathed in a soft pale yellow, almost as lifeless as the body on the ground. With a sigh he stood on his feet and cleaned his hand on his gown. Without a look back, he slipped the cardkey into the lock and stepped into the empty corridor. The life as he had come to know it for the past six months had ended now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the updates are taking so long I'm on a tight schedule to finish my thesis by the end of Sep. Crane is quoting Holden from The Catcher in the Rye. And if the numbers Leland gave Crane sounded familiar it's because they are ;)  
> Oh and I apologize if Leland's death has upset anyone. I thought it was necessary for the development of Crane's character altho Leland herself would have begged to differ.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Scarecrow lets Crane in on a secret.

He felt the stirrings in his mind like a languid cat stretching its long body along the yellow streets covered in early morning fog and the mud left from the last night downpour. It was almost three full days since the last time he had taken his medication and the symptoms were coming back now. He wanted to take a moment of respite and celebrate the gradual return of the Scarecrow to a mind that had felt so empty and restless without his presence, but he had so much work to do before that moment would come, if it ever would come. He was still in Arkham. But not for very long.

He creeped his way silently into Leland’s office and went straight for the safe located behind a painting of a nondescript landscape that Crane was still unable to guess the real location of. This used to be his office back when he was still the administrator and Crane could now imagine why it was Leland who had gotten it instead of Bolton. She must have persuaded that vile man, through her exceptional persuasive skills no doubt, to let her have Crane’s office. Obsession was a lethal disease and she should have known that better than anyone. Look where that had gotten her. But enough of that; lingering in the past would accomplish nothing but a deeper understanding of what Crane did not really care to think about, not now not ever. He had more urgent matters to attend to.

The safe opened with the code Leland had given him and Crane took a moment to take stock of the various items inside. There were the recordings of their therapy sessions, Crane’s old notes on his fear toxin project, a sample of the fear gas itself contained in a small canister, his personal clothes before he had to exchange them with a set of orange jumpsuit, even his dear burlap and the straitjacket were there and on top of them his folded glasses, all neatly piled like some precious tokens from a lost beloved. And of course his medication was all there, both the ones to placate the neurosis caused by having been under the influence of the fear toxin for so long and the ones to subdue his alter ego, all in white plastic bottles with tiny descriptions written on them. Leland apparently was a collector with an unhealthy obsession. Everything inside the safe belonged to Crane, arranged meticulously and with utmost care, it actually made him slightly sick to realize how deep Leland’s infatuation with him had run before Crane had to put a sudden stop to it all. He had thought Leland to be the sanest person in Arkham but apparently sanity was just too overrated in a place like this. She had her own kind of madness that had been festering under her skin for years. She had just been very good at hiding it; much like Crane himself.  

_‘Birds of a feather, ha?’_

The silky whisper caught Crane off-guard and caused him to jerk his hand back from grabbing the bottles. He closed his eyes for the briefest moment and drew a deep breath to slow down his heart rate.

_‘Missed me?’_

The tone was irreverent but haughty, still comforting in its familiarity. Crane allowed an honest “Much.” before grabbing all the items inside the safe and throwing them unceremoniously into a duffle bag to get disposed of later.  

_‘You’re not going to keep anything?’_

“No.” Truth be told, Crane had actually thought about keeping his glasses or the burlap, but there would be no need for either of those where he was going and Crane did not cling to things he could have no use for.

_‘And your insanity?’_

Crane’s lips stretched wide across his face, amused at the Scarecrow’s treatment of his mental state as an independent presence instead of a lack of what was thought as the norm, “oh no, we’re keeping that.”

The Scarecrow hummed approvingly inside his skull, a rippling sensation that spread through his body and warmed the tips of his fingers. Crane had not even realized just how cold he was until then, despite the fact that the room temperature was actually pretty normal.

_‘You should probably change into your own clothes. It’ll make the escape easier.’_

Crane had to agree, although he didn’t spare the jab, “ha, you just want the feel of soft cotton against your skin again.”

He quickly changed into his white button down shirt and the black suit, foregoing the tie and the sweater vest.

_‘Oh, no that would be you. My fabric of choice would be burlap, or have you forgotten?’_

 Crane’s eyes lingered wistfully on the said burlap, remembering the sensations he had long pushed back to the far recesses of his mind: The intoxicating taste of power and control over those who had given him a hard time, thinking they could best him, that wheels of fortune would always spin in their favors, that Crane would bow down to their every whim and let them trample all over him simply because he looked the weakest.

_‘But we have always been better than the lot of them.’_

The burlap was rough and irritating under his touch but to Crane, it felt comforting, leaving a churning pain of nostalgia on his heart.

“We’re not going to hide anymore. We have nothing left to hide,” he said softly as he zipped up the bag.

The Scarecrow stepped back, leaning heavily against the far end of his skull, like a welcome weight that grounded Crane in here and now.

_‘So this is it then? You’re really going to do it? No reconsideration?’_

Crane adjusted the bag on his shoulder as he walked up to the intercom placed on the desk.

“This ends now,” he said firmly and there was nothing more to be said after that.

The final step to his total destruction had been a long time coming and Crane was ready for the fall.  

 

* * *

 

Escaping Arkham from that point on was as simple as he had imagined. All he had to do was to drag all the security guards standing at the exist down to the infirmary as he used the intercom to announce an emergency situation there. Then he pulled one of Leland’s spare white coats over his own clothes to disguise himself as an orderly and silently slipped past the frantic guards who had discovered Leland’s body, shouting for nurses to come for help. The sun was peaking out of thin, white clouds spread haphazardly across the early morning sky by the time he finally stepped out into the streets of the Narrows, with a wry smile on his face, ironically thinking to himself, ‘I am a free man now.’

But of course, freedom was quite a slippery term for a man whose life was now motivated solely by revenge. But Crane was not too concerned about that; after all, freedom was not really what he wanted out of this life anyway.

_‘But then, what is it that you do want?’_

Crane shifted the duffle bag to his left shoulder, noticing that his right arm was still in a sling; _I should take care of that_ , he thought distractedly to himself, eyeing his surroundings with distaste. It would take him a long time to get to his destination on foot, and considering the fact that his face was now quite well-known to the general public -- the public he had helped sink into the lowest circles of hell -- it would take him even longer to make it to the Wayne Manor without getting discovered, or mobbed or killed.

_‘You are completely defenseless.’_

The harsh truth at the time had driven him insane, to the breaking point of no return when he had decided to sell his soul to the devil to save his own skin. The creation of the fear toxin was not a test of his abilities and practical knowledge alone; it was also his proverbial leap of faith into the abyss of total moral abandonment. He didn’t create the toxin because he was evil. He had been forced to become evil because he was defenseless. And revengeful. But mostly scared. It was a thought he had rarely allowed himself to fall back on as it used to fill him with a strong sense of self-deprecation and lack of control. And control was the last thing he would let go of.    

_‘Some supervillain you are.’_

The Scarecrow’s tone was abrasive, reprimanding Crane for not having embraced his darker side as some sort of gift and instead treating it as a necessary _evil_ , so to speak. But that wasn’t entirely true, was it? Sure, there was a time when Crane sought out knowledge as a way to change people’s lives for the better, but that was a long time ago. Then there came a period when he had dedicated himself to find all the ways he could successfully make people writhe and wriggle in fear before his superior being, but that had ended too thanks to the Batman’s untimely interference in his plans to ruin his whole life in one swift push of a button to release the fear gas into his face and then leaving him there for hours to battle his demons on his own until his mind finally snapped under the pressure of it all. Now though, there was only the time for passive observance. He knew everything that he ever wanted to know, and somehow that hadn’t been enough to grant him much happiness. He had failed, forced back to square one, and now with no ambition or false hope to ever make things right again. He was fucked.

_‘You’re depressed. Better hold on to the Bupropion.’_

It was a sarcastic remark but not without any truth in it. Depression was of course the tamest of all that was wrong with him, and it was one of the few maladies he had been already suffering from before the ‘fear toxin incident’. He didn’t really mind depression, though. It came with a genius mind and was as much a part of him as...well his insanity. Plus, he could probably use the withdrawal symptoms to his advantage.

_‘Oh trust me, you’re pretty enough to lure in the Big Bad Bat just by a flutter of your eyelashes. You won’t need to pull the pathetic damsel-in-distress act on him to earn his pity.’_

That too was a correct assessment. In fact, Crane had invested a lot of faith into his physical appearance to get under the Batman’s skin and win him over. Before taking the leave from Leland’s office, Crane had taken a moment to check out his face in the mirror. He hadn’t done that ever since he was admitted, there was no mirror in his cell and the one in Leland's office was placed behind a pot of hideous, foul smelling flowers. But he did look at his face then, at the sharp angles and soft curves, the drawn brows and drooping lashes, the unusually colored eyes and heavy lids, the pale skin marred with faded green bruises and cherry-red lips with an almost-healed deep cut right in the middle where his teeth had accidentally sunk after receiving a surprise blow from the Joker. But even the bruises and the cuts and the dark bags under his eyes could not hide the hard, solid fact that he was beautiful. Most people had difficulty in accurately evaluating their physical appearance but Crane had a mathematical mind and always knew, from a scientific point of view, that he was beautiful in a way that kept many self-conscious women away and many straight men have rape fantasies of him. Some of them had even made good on their desires, cornering Crane, overpowering him, drugging him. Those memories belonged to the old days though, before Crane had managed to develop his fear toxin to defend himself with. He wondered how women did it. Maybe he should have sold them some of his toxins, but that was a thought for when Crane still believed in the inherent goodness of humanity and made efforts to save those who were worthy to be saved. But he had long dismissed that thought as a pathetic illusion. The reality had taught him that no one was worthy to be saved; not even himself.

_‘I liked you better when you were insane. Depression doesn’t really do much for your complexion.’_

“All in good time,” said Crane as he stepped inside an abandoned parking lot where he used to make some dealings before he got the job at Arkham. He needed to get rid of his belongings first and as he scanned the area, he found the burn barrel in the far corner, exactly where it used to be years ago, with a small fire crackling softly inside it.

_‘Oh, how convenient.’_

Indeed. For once, luck was on his side. Otherwise he would have been forced to throw his things into the Gotham River which wouldn’t have been as permanently destructive as fire.

He started with his least personal belongings first, in a sort of burlesquian ritual; the hideous asylum outfit, the straitjacket he hadn't worn for a while, the tape records of his sessions with Leland, and then all his notes, the glasses and the burlap. He threw in his antidepressants without a single thought but hesitated when he grabbed the bottles that contained medication for suppressing his alter ego. He eyed the white bottles warily, an unsettling feeling scratched inside the walls of his stomach like fingers uncurling and nails sinking into soft tissues. The Scarecrow hissed inside his skull like a threatened animal and Crane tightened his grip around the bottles unconsciously.

_'You abandoned me.'_

Crane was actually surprised that it took the Scarecrow this long to bring up that subject.

“Out of necessity.”

_‘I know that but I hate the fact that you let me turn into an inconvenience that you needed to get rid of.’_ His voice was venom, dripping on the back of his tongue, burning his throat. It made it hard for Crane to swallow.

“I didn't want to get rid of you. It was just a temporary situation.”

_‘Don't give me that. I spent a long time in darkness not knowing where I was, what was happening to me, where you were. I deserve better than these feeble attempts at justification.’_

It felt like fever, having the Scarecrow’s voice hiss inside his skull like that. Lightheaded and slightly nauseous, Crane moved closer to the burn barrel, as if he was really coming down with cold.

“Ok...I’m sorry.”

_‘If you really want to apologize do it properly.’_

Briefly, Crane wondered just how weird it was to demand an apology from oneself but then he realized there was nothing remotely normal about him and abandoned the thought.

“What do you want?”

_‘Out.’_

The three-letter word dropped into the pit of his stomach like a hand grenade that blew up all his internal organs to hell. Suddenly it was impossible to breathe, his lungs were constricting painfully and he was only three steps from a full-blown panic.

“...no.”

_‘Don't be cruel. you owe it to me.’_

“I don't. The Batman does,” he breathed out, suddenly cold under his goosebumped flesh. The fire was licking at his fingers but he barely felt the sting.

_‘Let me have him.’_

“No.” This time, his voice was stronger, the shivers brutally forced back under his skin. He could feel the Scarecrow shrinking away from him, like an outstretched hand that he had slapped away.

_‘What have they done to you?’_ He sounded pained, like a child mourning the loss of his first pet.

“Nothing worse than what I have done to myself.”

_‘You're resisting me.’_

_As if I am a threat_ , was what the Scarecrow left out of the sentence. Crane couldn’t find it in himself to give him any reassurance that it wasn’t true.

“I don't know what you had been doing while I’d been under, but I'm not letting you out again.”

_‘You’re scared of me?’_ The tone should have been taunting, but it sounded betrayed.

“I need to be in full control.”

_‘I’m not challenging your GODDAMN…’_ The Scarecrow’s voice rose in anger and it made Crane’s head throb wildly in pain.

“Stop! Dont shout inside my skull it fucking hurts.” He gritted his teeth and willed the pain away. Having his alter ego shout inside his head felt like being penetrated and torn apart by a giant stick. He didn’t like the feeling one bit.

_‘I thought you were on painkillers.’_ The Scarecrow mumbled softly, as if trying to make it sound like an apology.

“This is a different kind of pain; plus the effects are wearing off.”

And they were. He had taken the sling off, and his right shoulder down to the tip of his fingers was throbbing in pain. It was also becoming very uncomfortable sitting hunched like that, with his back still sore and bruised. And each breath caused an intense stinging sensation in his lungs. Physically he was in a very bad shape, but he was more concerned about the stability of his mind. He had gone three days without taking his medication and he did not know how long it would take for the monsters to appear in his line of sight.

_‘But don't you ever wonder?’_ came the Scarecrow’s soft whisper after some moment of peaceful quietness.

“About what?”

_‘About what I did while you were taking a break from our broken mind.’_

“It doesn't matter now.”

_‘Not even what I did with Leland?’_ He asked slyly.

Crane’s heart skipped a beat. “What...what did you do with her?”

_‘Let’s just say her love confession was not really as out of nowhere as it seemed to you.’_ The tone was oddly cheerful.

Crane suddenly rose to his feet, forgetting his bad back, forgetting the fact that he was having a conversation with himself, forgetting the remaining of his belongings that he needed to get rid of before he could make his way to the Batman. At that moment, nothing mattered beyond his sudden panic over what the Scarecrow was insinuating. He didn’t know why he cared so much; he had killed Leland after all. But here he was, panicked and enraged and out of control all the same.

“What did you do?!” He screamed and the Scarecrow leaped back, like a heavy ball of iron that bounced back against the fractured bones of his skull, causing a sharp pain to shoot through his scalp.  

_‘Relax, I just had a little fun with her. A lot less insane than what you’re about to do with the Bat Man.’_

“I said, what did you do?” His breathing was labored. He knew his exaggerated reaction had something to do with the withdrawal symptoms, but at this stage there was nothing he could do to make himself calm down.  

_‘Just used a little of our -- mine really -- power against her obvious weakness for your pretty little face.’_

“Meaning what exactly?” He asked wearily, it hurt breathing.

_‘Don’t be dense. I’m talking about seduction.’_

The word left a bitter taste in his mouth and he felt a nagging pull to spit.

“Why on earth did you even feel the need to seduce Leland?”

‘ _Well, I was the one who encouraged her to let you know about her 'secret',’_ Crane could almost feel the shrug that went with that.

“You? What the fuck did you do that for?”

_‘Would you rather she never said anything and you never dealt with her obsession and now we were both worried she might send people after us and sabotage the whole plan?’_

“This whole mess would have been avoided if you hadn’t flirted with her in the first place!”

Crane felt angry. The last time something had managed to get under his skin to drive him to such baser feelings was when he was sacked from Gotham University on stupid charges.

_‘What are you so upset about? It’s not like you to have any regrets.’_

Regrets? Was he having regrets for being forced into getting rid of that one person who had ever come so close to caring for him? After all, wasn’t he a follower of the Sophoclean principle of not having the desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect? _Damn it!_

“Oh, but I do have regrets. For letting you take full control when I knew you would betray my trust in you.”

Acidic thoughts that he had long suppressed were now pouring freely through his veins and burning away layers of his well-constructed self-perseverance.  

_‘You don’t really mean that.’_ The Scarecrow sounded scared and pained, and wasn't that a novelty?

“You weren’t supposed to fuck things up!” He was still shouting and couldn’t find it in himself to care much. At this point, he wouldn’t even give a damn if he was attacked by the scums of the Narrows, or apprehended by the police or even knocked out by the Batman. He was furious and completely out of his element.

_‘I didn’t. I had your best interest in mind when I pushed her into acting out her desire. You weren’t there, she was already too deep into you to back away that easily. All I did was to confront her about it, and then I made her tell you how she felt about you so that you would know too and do something. And honestly you have entirely yourself to blame for this. She told me she’d tell you only when you asked about it. And you did, so that makes it your fault too._

_‘And if you were going to say that you didn’t know what you were actually asking her, then that's on you too. You should have seen that coming.’_

For some reason, Crane felt drained. They both did. He sat heavily on the ground, closed his eyes and took some deep breaths. The pain in his chest was a comfort as it distracted him from the treacherous thoughts poisoning his blood.

“Are you done patronizing me?” He said tiredly, his breath wheezing past his dry lips.

_‘That wasn’t my intent.’_ The tone was soft and almost timid.

“I’ve never quite understood what your intent is.”

_‘That’s simple. To protect you.’_ And he felt arms circling his mid-section, a heated presence pressing snugly against the small of his back. He could almost feel the Scarecrow’s chin resting on his good shoulder, his soft puffs of breath warming the chilled skin of his neck. He leaned back into the embrace, with eyes closed, wondering if there was a mirror before him right now, would he be able to see being hugged by himself? How deep did you have to descend into shifting circles of insanity to be able to see your alter ego gazing back at you in the mirror? Had Crane reached that point yet? Had he passed it by?

“There’s nothing simple about that.” He finally opened his eyes and stared at the orange flames dancing comfortingly in the burn barrel.

He felt the brush of spidery lashes and the press of soft lips on the skin below his ear. _‘True, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.’_

Crane looked at his clenched hand, still holding his medication in a death grip. Placated, or merely exhausted, he decided to trust the Scarecrow and threw the bottles into the fire.

There was no going back now, if there ever was.

The both of them spent some time in silence, with the Scarecrow still hugging Crane from behind. Crane didn’t mind the attention. He was feeling hollowed-out, as if his internal organs had been removed only to be replaced by compressed air. The Scarecrow’s presence was reassuring in a way that only a schizophrenic mind would have felt reassured.

_‘You do realize that there’s no way you could reach the Wayne Manor in one piece, don't you?’_

Crane came back to himself slowly, as if emerging out of water after being under for hours.

The Scarecrow was right. Crane was already in a bad shape, physically _and_ mentally. He wouldn’t stand a chance if a thug decided to rough him up.

“I have to draw the Batman to us then, so instead of us going to him, he would come to us.”

_‘And how are you going to do this?’_

Crane looked down at the last remaining item of his belongings resting innocuously at the bottom of the duffle bag and smirked. He took out the canister holding his precious fear toxin and gave a small laugh.

“Oh I just know the thing.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry the update took so long. Thanks to everyone who read, left kudos or comments on this little story, and motivated me to continue with it <3 We'll have the Batman in the next chapter.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Crane and Batman have a tête-à-tête.

He regained consciousness with a gasp, his lungs burned as if he had been deprived of oxygen for a long time or as if he had been inhaling sulfuric acid vapor for hours. He hadn’t been choked though, just a meticulous temple punch that had knocked him out straight away. The pain in his chest must have been his cracked ribs acting up, he didn’t believe the Batman had been very much gentle while handling his fragile, unconscious body.  But he was thankful for the small blessings, like how the rope around his wrists were not tied in a way that would have put any more unnecessary pressure on his painful shoulder or the fact that he had retained his clothes, and consequently a little of his dignity (not that he was much concerned about that aspect), as the dingy little place he was being locked inside was so damn cold, and the uncovered skin on his face and hands was tingling with a numbing sensation already. How long had he been in here, he wondered, tied up to a metal chair, with nothing for company but the dust in the air and the darkness and the cold pressing into his body from all directions, like some deranged lover seeking to destroy the body they worshiped?

_‘You’re awake.’_

Crane whipped his head around in alarm, eyes peering into darkness, it took him two seconds too late to realize the voice was actually coming from inside his head. How could he have ever forgotten…?

“You sound...relieved?”

There was a stretching feeling inside his skull, as if the Scarecrow was pressing his hands on the frontal bone and pushing forward, looking for a way out; as if he was trapped behind the bars of his skull despite his desire of not to be.

_‘I was...stuck in a limbo. For hours. I couldn’t get out. I was aware of the surroundings but...I couldn’t see. I couldn't speak. I realized you were unconscious but somehow...I couldn’t push you away. It was maddening.’_

The Scarecrow was in hysterics, and Crane’s brain felt like scrambled egg. He wished for painkillers. Damn, he missed his morphine doses.

“So you couldn’t get out. That’s...reassuring.”

The hissy fit inside his head felt like a dull knife cutting stubbornly through resisting flesh.

_‘Reassuring? I was going insane! I pushed and pulled and yelled but your subconscious felt like a dead weight on my body. You trapped me in there and I was…’_

“Terrified. You were terrified.”

The Scarecrow fell silent and stopped banging his fists around, the word ‘fear’ and all that had anything to do with it always pulled a stilled reaction from both of them. If Crane fully concentrated on the goings-on in his head -- which he did -- he could actually feel the brush of warm breaths from inside. There was someone inside his body filling the empty crevices with puffs of hot air. Someone with a separate mindset, different personality, and an uncontrollable manic streak. Crane’s self-made medication had not been designed to banish the Scarecrow completely, only to suppress him, to keep him under lock and key even when his consciousness was taking a leave from his mind. He had missed 11 doses of his medication since he stopped taking them three days ago and by all rights, the Scarecrow shouldn’t have been trapped the way he had, especially not when he had been so adamant to come out.

_‘It’s the side effect.’_

The Scarecrow’s tone was accusing, but Crane was in no state of mind to assuage his wounded feelings.

“You shouldn't have tried to get out. I thought we had an understanding.”

The Scarecrow’s response was cut off by the screeching noise of a door swinging on its hinges. Crane turned his head toward the sound and saw the flicker of light outside pouring behind the bulk of the Batman’s tall and intimidating figure. He gave him a loose, toothy grin.

“Hello, Mr. Wayne.”

The name felt strange and heavy on his tongue, like a ball of iron that he was trying his hardest not to let slide down his throat and restrict his airways.

Wayne, still in his batsuit, did not utter a word until he was standing mere inches from his seated, tied-up body. In the dim light, he looked livid and murderous, Crane supposed he probably didn’t take too kindly to criminals who discovered his secret identity. He wondered if the Joker knew. From what he had dug up on the ‘Clown Prince of Crime’ from Arkham’s archives, there had always been a kind of personal brutality in the way the Batman beat the Joker up that bordered on a level of sick, twisted intimacy. Crane thought there was also something intimate in being chained to a chair in the basement of the Wayne Manor apart from the rest of the world and with only a kinky, bat-loving control-freak for company. He felt pleased with himself and let it show on his bruised face.

“You are completely out of your element here, _Dr_. Crane,” he spat out the word ‘doctor’ as if he meant it as an insult. Crane smirked and the right side of his face throbbed in pain. He must have been badly bruised there.

“And what are you going to do to me?” He taunted Wayne while the Scarecrow looked on in passive interest.

“You really shouldn’t sound so pleased with your current situation, Crane. I don’t bode too well with lowlife criminals,” he growled and Crane felt a spark of excitement at the buzz of fear that Batman’s threat had caused to bubble under his ice-cold skin.

“Oh I know how they make you hungry for blood and gore,” he grinned up at the menacing dark mask, and then wetted his lower lip with a slow swirl of his tongue, “I’ve seen Joker.”

The whispered name sent the Batman into a fully alert state, as if Crane had just pulled the pin on a hand grenade and was about to throw it at his face, Joker-style.

“Did he tell you?” The gloved hand that suddenly tightened around his throat sent his heart racing. This was the part where he would wake up, drenched in cold sweats and disoriented like one of his test subjects after having inhaled too much fear toxin. There was no waking up now.

The Batman’s reaction had at least confirmed his earlier thoughts that the Joker must have known Batman was Bruce Wayne. With two of Gotham’s deadliest criminals knowing his secret identity, things certainly did not look good for Gotham’s savior.

_‘This will make our job so much easier, won’t it?’_

“Oh come on now Mr. Wayne, don’t sell yourself too short. You have an unforgettable face,” and here he lowered his voice in what he used to employ on his most uncooperative patients to get them to listen to his instructions, “I had dreams of you.” _Of your hand around my throat like the way it is right now, of your rasping breaths and my own labored ones, of your eyes flashing in unadulterated rage and mine in conquering madness..._ “They were hot too, if it weren’t for your hand squeezing my throat so hard I’d pass out only to wake up strapped in my straitjacket and locked up in my cell, a much grittier version of the nightmare.”

The Batman, as if suddenly conscious about where his hand was and what he was doing with it, let go of his throat then, but it was no easier to breathe. The air was stale and smelled like it was made of powdered moth wings, and the carefully controlled panic under his skin caused by the Batman’s presence felt like a cancerous lump in his throat. The Scarecrow was humming a nursery rhyme under his breath ( _There was a man, he went mad,_ _He jumped into a paper bag)_ , while Crane broke into a stubborn dry cough that scrapped the tender walls of his throat like sandpaper.

“What happened to you?” With that characteristic growl, even a curious inquiry sounded like an interrogation.

It took Crane a little while to suppress the coughs. Damn he could do with some water. “You mean apart from being gassed and having gone irrevocably insane?” He rasped.

The Batman pointedly ignored the jab at his expense. “The bruises; the dislocated shoulder and fractured ribs. I used my Deep Tissue scanner on you while you were out and it looked like you have been beaten within an inch of your life and weren’t lucky enough not to survive the whole trauma.”

Crane couldn't really fault him the giddy satisfaction in his tone. If their places were reversed, Crane would have been using every opportunity to taunt him and drag his freaky, masked face in the dirt of all his guilts and insecurities.

_‘You_ **_can_ ** _still taunt him.’_

Crane suppressed his grin, and engineered his expression to look as if he was trying to hide something unpleasant. He had spent many days in front of a mirror to practice his facial expressions way before he even got into the whole psychology business.  

“Oh that. Do you remember Lyle Bolton?”

“Bolton?” Crane imagined a raised brow behind that dark mask.

“Yes Bolton. The one you appointed as Arkham's head of security. That Bolton.” He purposefully made his voice sound slightly bitter and pained.

“Yes, what of him?”

Crane shrugged with what little freedom the ropes allowed him to have, which wasn’t much, but the pulsing ache in his shoulder caused by the motion made him feel pleasantly warm. “Well, let's just say, he isn't very fond of the crazies.”

“Did he do that to you?”

The strategy to use with Batman, Crane had quickly learned, was to never give him a straight answer. ‘Yes’ or ‘no’ was completely out of the question regardless of it being true or not. The Batman was not going to believe you anyway. Let him come to his own conclusions.

“You sound surprised like you don't believe the man to be capable of such sadistic violence.”

“I wouldn't have let him into Arkham otherwise.”

Crane looked away, head slightly downward as if in disappointment. “Ha. Then maybe you should drop by the Asylum sometimes. See how the crazies are doing under his watch.”

“Maybe after I dealt with you,” his voice was carefully guarded, betraying nothing.

Crane looked up then, allowing strands of wandering dark hair half obscure the startling blue of his eyes. Joan used to say he looked disarming and fragile like that. “Yeah, I’m top priority now, aren't I.”

The Batman didn't answer him; instead, his attention was focused on a holographic screen projector in his right gauntlet.

“Mr. Wayne, sir, we have an urgent situation here. Please come to the Main Hall as soon as you can.”

“I’ll be right there, Alfred.”

Wayne stood there for a moment, staring pointedly at Crane. His eyes were dark and dangerous, not in a psychopathic way, like the Joker’s green eyes when he was going to blow up a nursery room full of little toddlers, but in a calculated way, like he knew which wires he needed to cut to dismantle the time bomb or blow it all to hell. It would take a lot of effort to bring Wayne down to that level, where the smallest provocation would push him into pressing his finger on the trigger without a second thought, but Crane was patient. And he had a plan.

_‘The shittiest plan you have ever come up with, considering the fact that you’re supposed to be a genius.’_

_“_ I’ll be back for you,” he growled the promise like a threat, black cape swirling around his body like ill omen as he made his exit.

“Take your time, dear Bruce, I’m not going anywhere,” Crane shouted after him as the door closed and the little room was once again engulfed in pitch darkness and freezing silence.

It suddenly dawned on him then, this far out, tied to a metal chair in a dark, cold cell in the dungeon deep beneath the Wayne Manor, waiting out his own gradual dissolve while striving for the Batman’s complete destruction, there was really nothing left in the world. _His_ world, but Crane didn't know any other world beyond this point, and just as well, this could be the only reality that existed, the only point of reference he had been left with. And Crane, as a genius gone completely insane, hated stagnation and since he couldn't make things better past this point, he was set on making it worse. And he never did anything by halves.

_‘At least your destruction means I can come out and play.’_

“Don't be so joyous. Batman isn't anything like Leland.” His voice had an eerie echo in the empty room, it felt like he was floating in deep space. It was somehow liberating, how nothing mattered to him any longer. He was tasting the freedom he had created out of his self-destruction and he was loving it. _Intoxicating_ , was how it felt. You know that feeling when you just want to be hit by a car so hard that you'd wake up from the excruciating pain of shattered bones and a caved-in skull? This was it.

Crane tipped his head as far back as he could, leaning his neck against the metal headrest, staring at the absolute darkness above him. He felt the Scarecrow in the shallow dip of his neck, curled like a house cat pressed against his pulse, blowing hot puffs of air over the chilled skin. He was humming something in a cheerful, lazy tone, something Crane both knew and didn't, and he allowed himself to be lulled into a light slumber.

_‘The black and green scarecrow is sadder than me, But now he's resigned to his fate, 'Cause life's not unkind - he doesn't mind. He stood in a field where barley grows.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry about the late updates, it just happens that I have the worst job in the world which doesn't allow me much free time to get creative. I borrowed the Deep Tissue scanner and the holographic screen projector on Batman from Arkham Knight video game. The song the Scarecrow is singing to Crane in the end is by Pink Floyd. Hopefully the next chapter will not take this long. Thank you for reading!


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